Hebrews, Chapter 12

12:1 Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a
cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which
doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is
set before us,
12:2 Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our
faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross,
despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne
of God.

12:3 For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners
against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds.

12:4 Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin.

12:5 And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as
unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord,
nor faint when thou art rebuked of him:
12:6 For whom the Lord loveth
he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.

12:7 If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for
what son is he whom the father chasteneth not?
12:8 But if ye be
without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards,
and not sons.

12:9 Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us,
and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection
unto the Father of spirits, and live?
12:10 For they verily for a few
days chastened us after their own pleasure; but he for our profit,
that we might be partakers of his holiness.

12:11 Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but
grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of
righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.

12:12 Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble
knees;
12:13 And make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is
lame be turned out of the way; but let it rather be healed.

12:14 Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man
shall see the Lord:
12:15 Looking diligently lest any man fail of the
grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you,
and thereby many be defiled;
12:16 Lest there be any fornicator, or
profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his
birthright.

12:17 For ye know how that afterward, when he would have inherited the
blessing, he was rejected: for he found no place of repentance, though
he sought it carefully with tears.

12:18 For ye are not come unto the mount that might be touched, and
that burned with fire, nor unto blackness, and darkness, and tempest,

12:19 And the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words; which voice
they that heard intreated that the word should not be spoken to them
any more:
12:20 (For they could not endure that which was commanded,
And if so much as a beast touch the mountain, it shall be stoned, or
thrust through with a dart:
12:21 And so terrible was the sight, that
Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake:)
12:22 But ye are come unto
mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly
Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels,
12:23 To the
general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in
heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men
made perfect,
12:24 And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and
to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of
Abel.

12:25 See that ye refuse not him that speaketh. For if they escaped
not who refused him that spake on earth, much more shall not we
escape, if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven:
12:26
Whose voice then shook the earth: but now he hath promised, saying,
Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven.

12:27 And this word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those
things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things
which cannot be shaken may remain.

12:28 Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us
have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and
godly fear:
12:29 For our God is a consuming fire.